Raleigh Beer Week Starts Sunday August 28

Last year's inaugural Raleigh Beer week was a huge success with brewers from around the country convening in Raleigh to share some of their rarest offerings and talk about their passion. The brainchild of the Busy Bee guys, Chris and Woody- Raleigh Beer Week was a true beer lover's week- one where the city comes together to appreciate the finer points of brewing, history and enjoying beer.

This year will be bigger with more rare beer, more brewers and more events. The Busy Bee starts the week with a gathering of 20 breweries offering a "cellar clearing" event and a "ceremonial cask tapping by Mayor Charles Meeker," possibly one of the last casks that they Mayor will tap while still in office. The week will bring together brewers from 20 breweries, 8 states and Belgium and Germany. The whole thing is a big attempt at gaining Raleigh the modest title: "America's Smartest Beer Drinking City."

The Beer Forum this year will include "aging master Eric Salazar for a tasting of super-rare Felix Love & an informal round-table discussion on sour beers & barrel aging" so come prepared to learn everything you could want on sours. Other invents include pre fixe beer dinners, food pairings, cask openings, the launch of the Beer Prophet phone app and tasting events with the pros.

The website is still in development, but will be up in time for the first event this Saturday with the full schedule: Raleighbeerweek.com.

Ok, so I was gonna bitch about $40 to get in, but then I read the list. Oh hellz. Good work BB crew. What would go really well is to bring back some of the Saucer waitresses circa 2000. But only if they were still killing it.

I saw that you mentioned National Beer Day (perhaps by misakte) in your article. I just wanted make sure everyone knew that International Beer Day and National Beer Day are two very different holidays. There are a lot of unofficial random beer drinking holidays in the US. New Beer’s Eve April 6thNational Beer Day April 7thNational Homebrew Day May 7thAmerican Craft Beer Week Starts on the 3rd Monday in May and goes for a weekInternational Beer Day Aug. 5thNational Beer Lover’s Day Sept. 7thNational Drink a Beer Day Sept. 28thAmerican Beer Day Oct. 27th National Beer Day (April 7th) is the only with with a historically significant date. April 7th is National Beer Day here in the US. In 1933 during the prohibition era, the Cullen-Harrison Act was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on March 23rd. That law was enacted on April 7th allowing the brewing and sale of beer in the United States again as long as it was < 3.2% (4% ABV). It’s said that people waited in line overnight on April 6th outside Milwaukee breweries in order to legally buy beer for the first time in over 13 years. As a result, April 7th is known as National Beer Day and April 6th is called New Beers Eve. National Beer Days around the world March 1st IcelandApril 6th EnglandApril 7th USAApril 23rd Germany